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Low Fat Baked General Tso’s Chicken

General Tso’s Chicken is a favourite Chinese take out dish that you can make even better at home & with less fat than the deep fried version. One of our TOP TEN recipes ever.

General Tso’s Chicken oven baked to reduce fat.

Low Fat Baked General Tso’s Chicken – a favorite Chinese take out dish that you can make even better at home and with less fat than the deep fried version. This recipe has received many great reviews from readers who have tried it.

The real secret to this General Tso’s Chicken sauce is getting the caramel base correct, once you master that the rest is a breeze. I have had many readers tell me over the years that this recipe is better than any restaurant version they’ve ever tried.

Low Fat Baked General Tso’s Chicken

Here’s a short video which shows what the caramel should look like before you add the rest of the ingredients. You can see why it is so important to do this with care, because the caramel is so very hot and the addition of the other ingredients causes a big release of steam. This all calms down rather quickly but take care not to cause a burn.

Originally published March 31, 2009. Nov 2017 Update to include metric measurements and demonstration video.

Low Fat Baked General Tso Chicken - a favorite Chinese take out dish that you can make even better at home and with less fat than the deep fried version. This recipe has received many great reviews from readers who have tried it.

In a medium saucepan boil together the 1 cup of sugar and 1/4 cup of water.

Boil this over medium heat, watching constantly until the caramel starts to turn a light amber color and you can begin to smell the caramel. When it reaches this stage, give the other ingredients in the bowl a quick stir to make sure the corn starch is dissolved then add it all at once to the hot caramel. (Careful: This mixture is very hot!)

Be careful at this stage because this sauce can foam up considerably for a few seconds and it is very hot. Simmer for only few minutes and remove from the heat and allow to cool down slightly.

Toss the sauce with the cooked chicken pieces and serve over plain steamed rice or Chinese noodles.

Recipe Notes

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The nutritional information provided is automatically calculated by third party software and is meant as a guideline only. Exact accuracy is not guaranteed. For recipes where all ingredients may not be used entirely, such as those with coatings on meats, or with sauces or dressings for example, calorie & nutritional values per serving will likely be somewhat lower than indicated.

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As I was missing this American “Chinese” dish desperately in Switzerland where I live, this fully satisfied me to the point of yelling “this is IT” in my house. I also added broccoli and sesame seeds to the sauce like my local fav restaurant in Boston did. Thanks -Michelle

I’ve been eying this recipe for a month and so I’m giving it a try tomorrow. The ingredients are all pantry staples and this is my favorite Chinese dish with the exception of Singapore Noodles. If you can find me, or create for me a terrific recipe for those little darlin’s then by golly I’ll truly call you the kitchen God:)

I used sambal olek as my chili paste, and my this was delicious. The baked chicken makes a huge difference. Usually recipes require you to fry in a pan. At my first attempt I scorched the caramel, but the second attempt I succeeded. It was good.

This is the best. I may never get takeout again it’s so awesome. Thank you!!! I, too, added broccoli and sesame seeds. The chicken comes out perfect and the sauce is better than the Chinese restaurants serve.

I am 12 years old and have a mother who is kind of super healthy. She does not often let me make things like this but since the chicken isn’t fried she is totally fine with the recipe.I LOVE to take on some challenging recipes so I am super excited to try this out with my mom. Thanks!!

Hi Barry, I found this recipe on Pinterest and made it for dinner last night – DELICIOUS! Thank you. I have bookmarked your blog and look forward to checking in regularly – especially if all your food is as good as this one recipe 🙂

For some reason my caramel didn’t really come out- it was looking great at first, but just as it seemed like it was going to start to brown, instead it sort of dried up, and it was like the sugar wasn’t even melted. Does anyone know why this happened?

I had trouble with the caramel stuff. Made it twice and both times cooked it too long almost to the hard candy stage. The third time I mixed the sugar and water and all the other ingredients plus an extra tbsp of cornstarch. Then I boiled it for a little over a minute, stirring constantly, and let it cool. It wa the right consistency and tasted great. I really like this recipe except I just couldn’t get the caramel stuff right but my modification worked just fine.

Thank you so much for posting this! I made this for my husband for his birthday. He has soy, wheat, and peanut allergies and can no longer eat Chinese, and he was missing it terribly. With the discovery of Coconut Amino and some rice flour I was able to produce a safe version for him that tasted great!

I had a challenge with the caramel sauce as well. The water evaporated and left me with dried sugar. I added more water twice, and then more sugar. It still didn’t turn to caramel and made more of a sugar sauce than a sticky sauce. Any ideas?

I made this tonight. I added a bit of Mirin so it had a touch of sweetness, and while it was pretty spicy it was GOOD! My family and I are all foodies (the kids are 10 and 13)…we crave big flavor and this fit the bill! I expected the sauce to thicken a bit more but it did not. I suspect next time I will add a cornstarch slurry. But we all liked it! Thanks for the recipe!

This is delish! I made it as written but added broccoli (definitely recommend doing this). I had some trouble getting the sauce to thicken – even after some more cornstarch and water to thicken it. but either way its SOOOO good!

Ok, this looks amazing and I want to try it, but I have a clarification. I know I’m going to sound stupid, but does it truly call for “soya” sauce or is it really soy sauce with a typo? I’m new to Asian ingredients, so I didn’t know. Thanks!~Marysue

Hi any suggestions what to use in place of chili paste? I have all the ingredients except the chili paste… They never had it at the grocery store I went to and I never had time to go to another one!! Really want to cook this tonight!! Looks YUM YUM!!

I used 500gms of chicken thigh fillets and substituted the cayenne pepper for paprika as I didn’t have any cayenne. I then halved the rest of the ingredients. I made it serve 4 and it came in at 366 cals.

I served it over sautéed onion, garlic and cabbage and it was a nice decent serve.

The sauce can definitely be tricky, but last time we made this, we made extra sauce and put it in the fridge. Last week I diced up zucchini, summer squash, garlic and onions, stir fried them, then tossed them with the sauce. So delicious!! This sauce is my new addiction!

We made this last night & loved it. It’s very similar to my favorite General Tso chicken at the local Chinese restaurant. I might even up it to 1/4 cup of grated ginger next time, we loved the ginger that much!

I made this last nite and it was awesome. I swapped out the boneless chicken parts and used chicken wings. I have been looking for a new wing recipe and decided this sauce would be perfect. This is my new Chinese version of buffalo wings.

I did everything the same and it was OUTSTANDING! Thanks for sharing the recipe.

This recipe is amazing! An absolute hit with my family. It tasted like the best version of what I was hoping for (just like the picture and very tasty) – a BIG bonus when it’s the first attempt at a new recipe.
Thank you for the easy-to-follow instructions and for having ingredients that I usually have in stock!

Will definitely make again and check out your other recipes and cook book 🙂

Can I use Siracha in place of chili paste? And is it soya sauce or soy sauce? They sell both, and are 2 different types of sauces. I read the comments and you said it is soy sauce but wondering why it says soya sauce in the ingredients? Haha sorry just confused! And not sure which one to buy.

Sriracha will give a slightly different flavour but still good I think. It is regular soy sauce that I mean, the kind used all the time in Asian dishes. In Britain they sometimes use “soya” sauce to mean the same thing. Perhaps we are talking about 2 different things.

Delicious. Made this tonight and it was awesome. The only thing I’ll be changing next time I make it is to reduce the amount of grated ginger, was to much for my liking, I think I’ll reduce it to 1 tbsp and it will be perfect.

I made this for the family and it was delicious. Actually WAY better than the takeout that’s all breading around a tiny piece of chicken. Plus, it’s not loaded with grease. When making the sauce, I had a moment of panic. When I added the sauce to the caramel the cold sauce hit the caramel and turned into a rock! But the heat started to melt the rock quickly and all was well. However, next time I might warm up the sauce in the microwave prior to adding to the caramel. Like others, I steamed some broccoli and added sauce to the chicken and broccoli. This recipe is fantastic – you must try it!

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Hi, I'm Barry. I'm Dad to 2 amazing kids, author of 3 best-selling cookbooks, a freelance food writer & full time blogger. My lifetime love of cooking & baking has led me to share over 1600 recipes on this blog over the last 10 years. Come back often, there's always great new food & recipes coming out of my St. John's, Newfoundland kitchen!

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